We've had a valentine's day balloon floating in the atrium of my house since valentine's day, so I decided to shoot it down. I tried an airsoft gun, but that just put a small hole in it (it is a foil balloon). So I fashioned a blowgun which worked perfectly. I then spent the next five minutes talking like donald duck (helium).

I've just arranged flight tickets for the 20 March 2015 solar eclipse on Svalbard! Unfortunately all hotels have been fully booked for years, so we might have to spend the night at the airport, but in astronomy one routinely sacrifice some hours of sleep for an important event, right? The cost from/to Oslo is currently about $700 return for fully refundable tickets, $500 for non-refundable, and there are two flights on Thursday the 19th arriving 13:55 and 23:40. The return is 13:50 the day after, just after the eclipse (totality starts 11:10, partiality ends 12:12). So it's possible to do the eclipse in a 19 hour round trip from Oslo.

The chances for sunshine is probably around 50%. Which is a lot more than from the Faroe Islands, the other inhabited location over which the eclipse passes.

For people willing to shell out $6000+ plus travel costs to Oslo it's possible to book through Travel Quest and get a hotel room (they reserved almost everything several years ago).

My thoughts exactly. Companies like Travel Quest are just making it difficult for people in northern Europe to see this (the only total eclipse visible from a Norwegian town in 150 years). To defend the clearly overpriced price tag they're selling this as an experience package, but frankly if one wants to experience the Arctic, go on snowmobiles, go dog sledding, etc, I would recommend this anytime except around the crowdiness around the eclipse. Even for Norwegians, the US eclipse will be far, far cheaper if they want the comfort of a hotel. Longyearbyen has around 1400 inhabitants and around half as many guest beds. Foreign operators book everything several years ago. The Russian town of Barentsburg will also get the eclipse. It's a couple of hours away from the Longyearbyen and its airport by snowmobile. There is a hotel in Barentsburg, but I haven't checked the availability. It would then get much more troublesome since counting on such an option would be a gamble without extra days in case of bad weather making the Longyearbyen - Barentsburg stretch impassable. So this eclipse will have to be some kind of day trip from Oslo.